jewish agency

A diaspora Jewish activist sits beside a Palestinian woman at the Sumud Freedom Camp, Sarura, West Bank, May 19, 2017.

The ‘Jewish tent’ just became even smaller

The defunding of an Israel program with a progressive, human rights framework is an affront to all progressive Jews around the world. By Rebecca Arian Last week, the Jewish Agency announced it would be cutting funding to Achvat Amim (“Solidarity of Nations”), a program offering participants the opportunity to live in Israel and volunteer with organizations…

By +972 Magazine September 25, 2017

Activists listen to a speech given by a Palestinian elder from Sarura, West Bank, May 19, 2017. (Ahmad al-Bazz/Activestills.org)

What happens when teaching diaspora Jews about occupation gets ‘too political’

An item on Israel’s top news program falsely accused a volunteer program that allows young diaspora Jews to directly engage with the occupation, of sending its members to clash with IDF soldiers, causing it to lose its main source of funding. Now one of ‘Achvat Amim’s organizers is speaking out: ‘I hadn’t experienced being lied about and mischaracterized in…

By Edo Konrad September 19, 2017

Residents collect their belongings from the ruins of their demolished homes in the Bedouin village of Umm al-Hiran, January 18, 2017. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

For Arab citizens, ‘Jewish and democratic’ means demographic war

While much of the world justly focuses on land theft in the occupied territories, we must not forget that Israel uses the pretense of ‘Jewish and democratic’ to actively dispossess its own Arab citizens. Israeli citizens who may be feeling doubtful about the efficiency of their country’s institutions should take a hard look at the…

By Orly Noy August 22, 2017

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Members of the Reform and Conservative Jewish movements hold torah scrolls during a mixed men and women prayer at the public square in front of the Western Wall, in Jerusalem's Old City, on May 18, 2017. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

The lie at the heart of the Jewish American consensus

By choosing to engage on specific issues of Israeli policy while ignoring the fate of Palestinians, the Jewish American establishment has effectively sided with perpetuating the occupation. For years, the Jewish American establishment has been able to convince the world, and itself, that it does not directly meddle in internal Israeli affairs — a declaration most commonly used…

By Edo Konrad June 30, 2017

Joint List Chairman Ayman Odeh speaks on a panel during the Peace Now conference, July 24, 2015. (photo: Shalom Anasi)

Ayman Odeh has a dream, but not all American Jews like it

The leader of the Joint List got a rude awakening on his first official visit to the U.S. after being falsely accused of refusing to meet the leaders of a major Jewish organization in New York. ‘I have actually found that Jewish Americans are more progressive than Jewish Israelis. But the problem is with the…

By Lisa Goldman December 11, 2015

Ethiopian Jewish immigrants protest against a plan to evict them from an immigrant absorption center in Mevaseret Zion, near Jerusalem, May 1, 2014. (Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

How the Jewish Agency is throwing Ethiopian immigrants onto the street

By Yossi Dahan (Translated from Hebrew by Shaked Spier) The Jewish Agency for Israel states on its website that its work concentrates on four fields: aliyah (the immigration of Jews from the diaspora to Israel), social action and giving, Israeli experience, and bringing Israel and Jewish communities abroad together. Let us focus on the Jewish…

By Haokets July 18, 2015

SJP member holds Palestinian flag in front of make-shift coffins at Sproul Plaza on Jan. 21, 2009. SJP was protesting the Israeli attacks on Gaza, Palestine which took place on December 2008 through January 2009. (photo: Ramsey Al-qare)

How a Jewish Agency fellow becomes a one-state activist

When Gila Hashkes arrived at UC Berkeley as a Jewish Agency Israel Fellow, she felt like she was jumping into the heart of pro-Palestinian activism. Her job was to organize Jewish students on campus, strengthen their connection to Israel and give them tools to justify its policies. But after a year-long journey of digging deeper…

By +972 Magazine September 7, 2013

Israeli flag (wikimedia/public domain)

Jewish Agency plans most exorbitant ‘pro-Israel’ campaign ever

A new initiative to market Israel to American Jews is expected to cost up to $300 million annually, three times the Birthright budget. But a cheaper project for both Americans and Israelis that could bolster Israel’s image much more effectively is not on the table: Ending the occupation. The Jewish Agency is reportedly developing its…

By Mairav Zonszein August 18, 2013

End the Siege on Gaza sign (Mya Guarnieri)

The slandering of Gaza flotilla activist Greta Berlin

A lie of omission is as good a lie as any other. It’s amazing how blatantly, how shamelessly a Jewish Agency official named Avi Mayer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, the Jerusalem Post, Canada’s National Post and I don’t know how many other “pro-Israel” entities have slandered Greta Berlin, a prominent spokeswoman of the Free Gaza Movement,…

By Larry Derfner October 5, 2012

WATCH: ELAL, Israel’s national airline, now part of state PR efforts

You know a country is in serious trouble when it decides to have its national airline’s pilots and flight attendants doing its Hasbara (PR) work for them. El Al “Ambassadors” will now be “at the forefront of Israeli diplomacy in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Los Angeles and Toronto,” as part of a joint initiative with…

By Mairav Zonszein June 28, 2012

Israel reenacts ‘Zionist triumph’ of 1948 Palestine partition plan

Today, exactly 64 years ago, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 181 to end the British Mandate in Palestine and partition the territory, giving international legitimacy to the establishment of a Jewish nation-state somewhere in Palestine, as well as the notion of two states for two distinct nationalist identities, one Jewish and one Arab,…

By Mairav Zonszein November 29, 2011

Costs, not ideology, driving North American Jews to move to Israel

North American Jews who are moving to Israel are increasingly doing so for economic reasons – however, it is being packaged as Zionism Ironically, while people around the country are pitching tents to protest the high rent prices and general cost of living in Israel, a plane full of North Americans just immigrated to Israel…

By Mairav Zonszein July 20, 2011

Update: Corrections to “Jewish Agency” article and response

After publishing an article yesterday entitled “Jewish Agency to approve convert’s eligibility to immigrate to Israel,” I received the following email from Haviv Rettig Gur, director of communications for the Jewish Agency, which was also posted as a comment on my blog by “Yoav.” Leaving aside the personal insults and tone of the email, it did…

By Mairav Zonszein June 20, 2011